


The Patient Files of Hannibal Lecter

by MJ (mjr91)



Category: Channel Zero, Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Chapter 3 Hannibal collides with creepypasta, Gen, Gen Work, Hannibal had to build a career reputation somehow, Hannibal has regular patients, Hannibal is a very good psychiatrist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-18 03:51:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2334209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjr91/pseuds/MJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal Lecter could only have built his reputation by being successful with many patients that he never killed -- ordinary patients who did well and were grateful for their treatment by a very fine psychiatrist.  I've simply decided to imagine and report on patients who built the reputation he lost.  In Chapter One, a depressive, mid-life housewife who followed her doctor's advice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Patient FIle -- Marlene Kagan (depression)

**Author's Note:**

> Hannibal Lecter had to build his psychiatric career by treating patients successfully, both ordinary people and those with complex psychiatric cases. Otherwise everything else that came down wouldn't be so shocking. Here are stories, intermittently, of what Hannibal's real psychiatric practice might be like -- no patients killed or eaten, people leaving his office and reporting on what a great doctor they're seeing. Suggestions for patient cases will be accepted in comments -- can't promise how many I might be able to do given my schedule.

Marlene Kagan's case was uncomplicated, for which Hannibal Lecter was profoundly grateful. She was one of the most interesting people he had met in Baltimore, and would have counted her as a friend save that she was, and had come to him as, a patient. When he would be able to discharge her from his care, things would be different. Acute depression, really a touch of midlife crisis, unbefitting such a lovely woman.

Kagan was not beautiful, in token of the word "lovely". She was a bit more attractive than plain, wide-eyed and plump-lipped, with lips that retained enough collagen at her age for her still to have a smile when her face rested. Plump did not describe her figure but she was by no means slender, either; also a bit on the tall side for a woman, she was easily a size 12 or 14, with undoubtedly womanly, and very lush, curves. Those curves must have been well-admired by the more discerning men of Paris – Americans held such odd standards for the female body, longing for pre-pubescent boys in their women – when she had studied there, for she, like Lecter himself, had attended the Sorbonne. While there, after graduation and while living there with her first husband, she had also attended Le Cordon Bleu, which Lecter had not; he envied her the culinary training. His own had been far more hard-won.

She had taught French at Towson University for several years, before she and her husband – a surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital – had begun raising a brood of toddlers. For their own amusement, and because it was good for both of their language skills… and not incidentally because it pleased his patient so much… Lecter sometimes conducted their sessions entirely in French. He booked her sessions at lunchtime, and for a full hour – some days he brought a meal that he had cooked, and other days she practiced her own French cooking skills, a talent her McDonalds-loving children failed to appreciate, for the two of them, their sessions conducted at a table in Lecter's office.

It was entirely possible that her improvement was at least in part a combination of attention and appreciation from her psychiatrist, who prescribed her only the mildest anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs, exactly one of each. He had prescribed an equally mild sleeping pill when they began their sessions, only to discard it after three months of weekly sessions. Her depression, it seemed to him, was rooted in her children's growing independence, plus increased time on her hands – her being the vice-president of the Mount Sinai women's auxiliary was no longer enough to keep her occupied. He helped her through the basics – allowing children to leave the nest gradually, for they had to learn to fly by being away from home more than they did as toddlers; coping with her discovery of the fling her husband had had at a medical conference in Jamaica (fortunately, it had not been any sort of full-fledged affair), and her feeling of needing more activity in her life.

After some months of talking her through such things and monitoring her medications, Lecter had begun the task of pointing out that a woman with a master's degree in French, who had been a full-time university instructor, might need more in her life than children, women's groups, and lunches with other medical wives to fill her daytime schedule. Lecter knew medical wives – he'd had his own brief, discreet, short affairs with several of them, all of whom had been charmed by his looks, his accent, his courtesy, and his attentions – rather than the annoying and embarrassing process of booking into hotels, they had driven into his garage unseen, entered his magnificent home, and found themselves at his table, with exotic private meals, excellent wine, and the prospect of his particularly comfortable bed afterwards. Lecter didn't really care for other doctors' wives, but they were discreet, socially acceptable if one were to be found with them (the accusations in the divorce might be messy if such were to occur, but were less damaging, and far less public than a headline of "noted psychiatrist found with prostitute" – besides, a suspicious, possibly dangerous husband could easily be made to disappear), and easily available. Most of them, unfortunately, and unlike Marlene Kagan, were vapid, interested primarily in fashion and boarding schools, and uninteresting outside of their usefulness as stress relief.

His suggestions for filling in the gaps Kagan embraced like a lifeline. She took an adjunct position at Essex Community College teaching two French classes. She volunteered her services as a taster and judge at one of the better culinary schools in the city, near Johns Hopkins. Her husband didn't blink, it turned out, at her request for after-school care for the children so that she could take on another adjunct position at Towson, which made no secret of its interest in having her back on faculty when her children were older. She kept the anti-anxiety medication, but at least temporarily dropped the anti-depressant; Lecter told her that she could have it filled by her family doctor if she needed it again after he discharged her.

When he discharged her, finally, she looked better – no smaller, no less pleasingly curved, but she stood upright more firmly (of course, he had referred her to a chiropractor he knew, telling her that the spinal adjustments were excellent for headaches, which she also had; he knew the chiropractor to be talented, as the man saw him often after night-hunts that sometimes bothered Lecter's back when his victims fought back, or were too heavy), her smile was brighter, and she had progressed from cashmere sweater sets and pearls to nicely and femininely tailored teaching clothing. It was much unlike him to have more than minor physical contact with a patient, but he hugged her willingly.

"I will miss our sessions," he admitted to her.

"You needn't, entirely," she told him, smiling. "I was hoping you might help me with something else."

He raised an eyebrow, surprised. "What would that be?"

"My husband's become interested in tracking down his family in Europe. We've decided to go next year and see if we can find his remaining relatives. He and I both know a little German, but I don't know one word of Lithuanian. Do you think you could teach me enough conversational Lithuanian to get by on a trip?"

"I should be delighted. Shall we schedule your sessions at lunch?"

"Next Thursday would be perfect – it's been our regular session for months. Shall I bring lunch?"

"Not at all. It's time I introduced you to Lithuanian cooking. In fact, you must arrange to bring your family to dinner one night. I have not cooked a traditional Lithuanian feast in some years." He smiled to himself. There was a doctor becoming suspicious of his wife's late-afternoon activities on Wednesdays, and the man was fatty enough to make a perfect pork stew. "I have a stew recipe I think your family will particularly enjoy."


	2. The Delightful Patient With Excellent Taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crossover with another series. No information in advance; I'm not spoiling the fun.

Such a client was a delight, a recipe for drama, disaster, and death. A decorated Naval officer, who had gone AWOL. The recipe included a dash of narcissistic personality disorder, an inclination towards violence, anger. No depression – if depression were anger turned inwards, there was none of that here. Perfectly sociopathic – textbooks could be written on his case, if anything here were ever to be published. That, alas, was unlikely. The government hated leaks of military intelligence, and the operations this man had described could never be discussed in print. Ah – one must never forget post-traumatic stress disorder from multiple stressors, both from his work and his family.

Hannibal Lecter made careful notes in his journal. He could help this client, yes. He could help the man realize his full potential. The man had so much of it. And this client could be billed heavily – normally a military patient would be covered by CHAMPUS, but this man had come to him privately, and had a great deal of personal money at his disposal. Nothing was better than a cash client who was willing to pay an extraordinary fee. The circumstances warranted it; this was a client whose records needed to be inaccessible, definitely never recorded by an insurance company or findable through a hacker's search of computer records. He had so many issues. But, all things considered, he should have been in far worse shape.

Lecter looked in the waiting room; there was his client, dressed comfortably in khakis and a cashmere sweater, a pair of pebble-grained Italian hiking shoes under all. The man cradled a bottle of wine in the crook of an arm. It was customary for Lecter to offer coffee, tea, or other drinks to all patients, wine to those who could appreciate it and whose medication regimens permitted it. Better wine went to the best of his clients. This was one of his few clients whose money and whose taste rivaled Lecter's, and he occasionally favored Lecter with a bottle of his own.

"Ah, Doctor Lecter," his patient said, rising. "I found this little beauty at auction a week ago. I could cellar it, but it would be a shame to let it wait when there are two of us able to appreciate it now. I will happily allow you the honor of uncorking it."

The psychiatrist glanced at the label. "A Chateau Petrus? Delightful."

"The 1945."

Lecter nearly swooned at the thought. The 1945 was legendary, selling for many thousands of dollars a bottle. Still, his client could afford it, as well as having the palate to appreciate it, and Lecter had never encountered the fabled vintage before except in wine writing. If the man wished for the two of them to share the bottle, even one small glass of the rare Pomerol, who was Lecter to say nay? "Uncorking it will be an honor indeed, and drinking it a greater one. Come in. We may do little today but enjoy this wine; however, delights such as this are hardly unconducive to the healing process, as you are surely aware."

"One of the reasons I chose to seek treatment from you, Doctor Lecter. A man who shares my tastes as well as understands my mind is as rare as a 1945 Pomerol."

"More rare, I should think," Lecter all but purred.

The wine was as excellent as the stories about it had foretold. Fortunately, his client was the last of the day, so that if the session ran over, no one could complain. The two of them certainly would not do so.

The man had made great progress, Lecter had to admit. He had learned and absorbed the coping skills to deal with his flashbacks, and had learned to moderate his anger remarkably; in fact, as they talked that night, his patient revealed with pride that he'd avoided killing anyone that month who hadn't been a work target. That was certainly improvement; they had been working on stopping him from unnecessary killing. Although Lecter admired an inspired killer, improperly done killing resulted in such tragic things as arrests and prosecutions that were usually reported in the news. Loudly.

His patient was as clever a killer as himself, though he disposed of his kills in an entirely different fashion, and without the elevation of the meat and organs that Lecter so appreciated. He had never discussed his own predilections with his patient, but when the man was discharged, there was every possibility that this man after his own heart and he might become fast friends. After all, they had much in common, and Lecter suspected that the wealthy gourmet Navy man might appreciate some of the delights of Lecter's table even knowing what Lecter was serving.

"You have made excellent progress," he told his client. "And we have run an hour over our time, although it surely cannot be helped with this Petrus, can it? You have half a bottle left."

"Might I buy you dinner, Doctor?" the man inquired. "I'm sure I can talk the restaurant into letting us drink this while we eat."

Lecter shook his head. "I forbid that. There is only one table in this city that can produce a meal worthy of accompanying this wine – and that is mine. If we are to finish it together tonight, I must request that you dine with me. I shall be happy to cook a simple chop with risotto and a Romaine salad to accompany it."

"I should be delighted. We must finish this before I head back to Washington."

"I must warn you," Lecter said, "that some of my guests find my dishes to be almost too exotic for their tastes."

His patient shrugged. "My tastes run to the exotic as well. The finest meal I ever had was one I cooked myself during a mission, while I was waiting for a rescue on a deserted island. I find it amazing what can be done with coconut and banana leaves over an open fire. All I had were coconuts, bananas, plantains, some wild peppers, and the most interesting meat I had ever killed."

"What was that?" Lecter asked. "Wild boar? A tropical bird of some sort?"

The man smiled wickedly as he eased his coat onto his shoulders. "Perhaps you've heard of long pig? I had no more bullets but I did have a machete, and I trusted that my deceased enemy was in better health than the animals on the island. Roast leg of Malaysian long pig grilled in banana leaves. It's the sort of meal I doubt I shall ever have the pleasure of experiencing again."

"Mr. Reddington, I believe that you shall be the most honored guest ever to dine at my table. Please, follow my car to my house from here. I shall do my best once we arrive to find something that may once again excite your palate."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crossover with NBC's The Blacklist. Raymond Reddington and Hannibal Lecter are absolutely meant to know each other.


	3. Chapter 3: Dr. Michael Painter Remembers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Michael Painter is haunted by the ghost of a children's show he used to watch. Hannibal Lecter helps him see logic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so Hannibal Lecter meets SyFy's Channel Zero, with just a dash of the original canon creepypasta ("Candle Cove's" Channel 58).

Dr. Michael Painter was a child psychologist with more than one book to his name. He seemed remarkably well-adjusted on television when he gave interviews about his works. He deflected neatly when asked about the disappearance and even the death of his own brother in Iron Hill, a town in Canada, a number of years before.

But psychology majors who plan to practice as clinical psychologists are ordered to be in therapy themselves, and Michael Painter had not only embraced therapy at university, but felt that he still needed it. It was bad enough for his brother to have disappeared mysteriously during the disappearances of a number of children around Iron Hill in the 1980’s, but worse yet for him to keep his secret, that he had been forced to kill his brother in order to save the lives of others.

Painter’s asking around the deeper circles of therapists who saw other therapists as patients had led to an interesting referral, one that caused him to fly first once a week, then twice a month, and, finally, monthly, to Baltimore. It was, admittedly, unusual to find a psychiatrist, rather than a psychologist, who actually saw patients as a therapist rather than as a diagnostician or prescriber any more, but Hannibal Lecter was rumored to be brilliant at handling peculiar cases that made strong Freudian analysts weep and behavioral psychologists queasy. Many of them were criminal cases, and though in that area he had strong competition from Dr. Frederick Chilton, Chilton, fortunately, was at an asylum for the criminally insane. Most counselors who knew Chilton thought that Chilton was on the wrong side of his institution’s bars.

And so, Painter determined that if any therapist could help him with his past, with his guilt, with his nightmares, surely it was Hannbal Lecter. Indeed, Lecter’s office was so comfortable, the psychiatrist’s gaze so steady, his concern so palpable, and the tea Lecter had offered Painter so perfectly brewed, that Painter felt ready to confide much of his distress almost immediately.

“Doctor Lecter, how much effect do you think a children’s show can have over the children who watch it?”

“My dear Doctor Painter, it seems to me that you would be the expert in that subject, not I. I have not turned my attention to child psychology, whereas you have studied it deeply enough to be a public expert. Of what little I know of the area, however, it seems that educational television, in moderation, seems to be good for children. On the other hand, what a child watches can have some influence over him – or her, of course – in terms of their absorption of the culture around them, social mores, what to wear, what attitudes they are expected to adopt. But surely television cannot control anyone’s life.” Lecter steepled his fingers in front of his lips, leaning forward in his armchair. “On the other hand, as my opinion is not expert, I stand willing to be corrected if I am wrong. Please elaborate.”

“What if I told you that as a child, my friends and I saw a clumsily produced, almost inane children’s show that was actually capable of controlling our actions? I’ve seen television cloud minds. It clouded my brother’s. He murdered several other children, and I had to stop him – I…” Painter paused.

Lecter was familiar with confessions of homicide. He collected them. “You killed him,” he finished, calmly and evenly, with the warm and empathetic sound yet detached expression which Painter had been told he would encounter. “A sad state of affairs for you and your family, I am sure, and one which I gather you plan to explore with me. But since you began by talking about the power of television, I am certain that you wish to continue on that topic at the present. I am intrigued that you say this show was able to control children’s minds. Did it have any effect on adults?”

Painter shook his head. “That’s the damnedest thing,” he mused, staring into his teacup. “It wasn’t a cable channel. It was a high number on the dial settings, back when TVs had dials and such. Channel 58, I think. It was one of the few things you could see on it. Funny thing – the kids who watched it, like me and my brother Eddie – we couldn’t get enough of it. It was a cheaply produced children’s show with pirates – the one’s name was Percy, Percy the pirate – and a talking cloud, and other crazy puppets. It had the lowest production values that ever existed. We’d all be glued to the set, but when our parents would walk in, we’d be told we were watching static. All they could see was TV static, like nothing was there, and they’d just hear the crackling sound. It was as if we were watching a show that was completely invisible to them. How could that be possible?”

Lecter’s turning the problem over in his mind was visible. After a moment, he took a breath. “Doctor Painter… I was not present, and unlikely as the story sounds, since you seem to be perfectly rational, and since you appear as if you could produce others who would verify your account, I cannot discount it or label you in any way delusional. In fact… I recall reading something some time ago about a particular sound used on cell phones by children, one that they can hear and use to signal each other, because as we age, we lose the capacity to hear that particular pitch. I have very acute hearing, so I have wanted to experience that sound to see if it is audible to me. If this is a fact, one might conjecture that there might be some way to produce both sound and visual effects that might be visible to children but not to adults. I do not say that it is true, nor do I have the experience to know if it is possible, but I do not know that it would be impossible. Perhaps that is more in your line, knowing children’s minds as you do.”

Painter perked up. “The mosquito sound! Yes. I’ll bring an audio of it next week. I can’t hear it myself, not at all.” He sipped at his tea thoughtfully. “What you suggest sounds crazy, but no crazier than my own story, and I know that my story is true. I’m not the only kid from Iron Hill who watched ‘Candle Cove.’” He sipped again. “My brother… somehow my brother got the power to persuade the other kids to do what he’d tell them… things they’d never do on their own. Pull out their own teeth. Jump off ledges. The kids that went missing… I’ve never told anyone, but I know he killed a couple of them, or talked them into killing themselves. It seemed as if characters from Candle Cove had taken over him and given him powers.”

Lecter relaxed into his chair. “Doctor, I would suspect that there are sounder reasons for that than possession by television. You were both children at the time; there was no reason for you to suspect a mental illness on your brother’s part. A child with a delusional illness might view the show’s characters as more real than they were, and believe they were people compelling him to perform various acts. Alternatively, though it seems doubtful, if other children were also affected, the thought of hypnotic suggestion worked into the show is not altogether inconceivable. All viewers might not be affected, but it might, to whoever put this together, be worth the experiment.”

His patient raised an eyebrow. “Hypnotic suggestion? I’ve never thought of that. There might… I don’t know that much about hypnosis.”

“Nor do I. It is merely a stray thought. But a logical explanation seems the most likely. I suspect you have never thought of these things before, because I doubt that you have disclosed most of them to anyone else before, even in your scholastic therapy sessions. You have had no one else with whom to exchange ideas.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Painter said with some enthusiasm. “I’m going to go back to Iron Hill for my vacation. I need to see my family anyway. And I’m going to investigate this Candle Cove business like an adult.”

“Excellent,” Lecter proclaimed. “Facing it head-on with some reasonable possibilities might be very helpful to you. You might find the matter very enlightening.”

“Thanks. This has been a great session.”

“I’m glad I could help.” Lecter smiled and rose from his seat as his patient did. He made a mental note to ask his secretary to clear his calendar for a few days. Perhaps Iron Hill was worth a visit of his own. Candle Cove, indeed.


End file.
